Free Republic

@daveweigel Unexpected statement from Paul Ryan: "It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans." More...

NBA ratings continue to be inexplicably low this month, with all of the Twitter chatter surrounding the league’s return not translating into an actual increase in viewers. When the NBA resumed its season at the end of July, many observers assumed it would be a ratings boon for all involved. Networks were starved for sports programming as a result of COVID-19, and basketball’s glut of big name stars should have converted into a ton of viewership. Only it didn’t. In the first week of action, the NBA’s ratings immediately sputtered. Rather than spiking due to an increase in hype and...

California’s Proposition 47 reduced a number of “non-serious, nonviolent crimes” that had previously been considered felonies to misdemeanors. Among those crimes were shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, and writing bad checks. In terms of the numbers, as long as the total value of the stolen property is under $950, it’s simply a slap on the wrist. That also means a thief may now steal something under that limit every single day and it will never rise to felony status. When you eliminate stiff penalties for criminal activity, you almost guarantee an increase in these types of crimes,...

Analysing microscopic crystals in the basalt and ejected material of two volcanoes in the Galápagos, the researchers discovered hidden systems of magma that are not so simple or predictable after all. Even though the Wolf and Fernandina volcanoes in the Galápagos have seemingly spewed the same basaltic lava for their entire existence, the new findings suggest they are sitting on a chemically diverse system of molten rocks, some of which have the potential to set into motion explosive activity. Just because these volcanoes appear boring on the surface doesn't mean the monotony will continue forever, the researchers say. While the...

May their shame be eternal. To the hack journalists of the left who sold the lie, to the paid-off scientists who ran misleading studies, to the larger medical community that didn’t stand up for the genuine studies, to the fund-grubbing worms at the NIH, CDC, and WHO, specifically Tedros Ghebreyesus, PhD, and of course, to the biggest swindler of them all, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the ratface bastard who whored his considerable expertise to make money for his Big Pharma friends and grow his budget: may the world look upon you for what you are: scum. A surprising new study found...

Renewed shopping drove a record 17.7% increase in retail sales in May, though total spending remained below levels before coronavirus. May’s jump in retail spending marked the biggest monthly increase in records dating back to 1992, and followed the largest monthly drop on record in April, a revised 14.7% seasonally adjusted decline, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Retail sales totaled $486 billion in May, a level well below prepandemic levels. February retail sales, for instance, were $527 billion. The increase followed three straight months of declining retail sales, and offered an additional sign that the worst of the economic shock...

VIDEO Democrat economist Steve Rattner who, as you can see, predicted doom and gloom for employment in April was absolutely SHOCKED by the May jobs report which showed a sharp rise in employment. Also note that back in April he seemed to hopefully anticipate double-digit unemployment on Election Day. A possibility that was probably shattered by the latest jobs report.

May’s jobs numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday shocked economists, who expected something starkly different from the 2.5 million payrolls added and lower 13.3% unemployment rate. Economists estimated that the country would lose 7.5 million jobs. The unemployment rate was expected to hit 19%. In notes circulating following the release, dumbfounded economists struggled to get their jaws off the ground. “In one line: Rather startling,” wrote Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson. “The biggest payroll surprise in history, by a gigantic margin.” ING’s chief international economist James Knightley called the report "simply astonishing." “Somehow the US jobs market has come...

Stocks rose sharply Friday after the U.S. May jobs report showed a surprise 2.5 million jump in payrolls and a drop in the unemployment rate to 13.3% as businesses began to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. How are benchmarks performing? The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +3.16% jumped 692.87 points, or 2.6%, to 26,974.69, while the S&P 500 SPX, +2.53% rose 68.63 points, or 2.2%, to 3,180.98. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.88% advanced 160.03 points, or 1.7%, to 9,775.85. On Thursday, the Dow ended 11.93 points, or less than 0.1%, higher at 26,281.82. The fourth straight gain matches a...

As late as April 2, Gov. Tony Evers (D), backed by Biden, supported holding the election in person as Wisconsin law requires. However, on April 3, Evers changed his mind and asked for the legislature to quickly amend Wisconsin law to allow all voters to vote by mail. The Wisconsin Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, refused to rush such a last-minute change into law, and thus the media was given a "Republicans are literally killing people" narrative.There's one major problem with that narrative: The in-person voting does not appear to have killed anyone. The state of Wisconsin could identify...

Governor Newsom: California’s COVID-19 peak may be lower than the state expected

One of the biggest arguments for paid leave for new parents has been an economic one: Research has repeatedly shown that women with paid time off after childbirth are more likely to keep working. But a new study, the largest to be done in the United States, found the opposite. In California, which in 2004 became the first state to offer paid family leave, new mothers who took it that year ended up working less and earning less a decade later. They averaged $24,000 in cumulative lost wages, it found. “I could feel the air going out of the room...

The only thing that rivals President Trump’s tally of kept promises is the endless list of inaccurate predictions his critics have made about the U.S. economy.  Of course, we heard these apocryphal predictions even before Donald Trump won the 2016 election. For instance, in October 2016, the far-left publication Politico boldly declared that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House.” The ability of Trump’s critics to predict our economic future hasn’t improved with age. Throughout 2019, numerous so-called “economists” and “experts” have taken a...

U.S. manufacturing output rebounded more than expected in November, as the end of an almost six-week strike at General Motors plants boosted auto production. The Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that manufacturing production rose 1.1% last month after a downwardly revised 0.7% fall in October. Industrial output also rose 1.1% in November after a downwardly revised drop of 0.9% in October. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, overall industrial production and manufacturing output in November rose 0.5% and 0.3% respectively. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast overall manufacturing output would rise 0.7% and industrial output would increase 0.8% in November. Production...

CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday no matter your view on President Donald Trump there's no denying we're living in the best labor market in more than a generation. "You can't contradict that these are the best numbers of our lives. You can't," Cramer, 64, said following the government report showing the U.S. economy created a better-than-expected 266,000 nonfarm jobs in November, with the unemployment rate dipping to 3.5%, matching a 50-year low. Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 3.6% last month. "People don't want to say good things" about the economy, said Cramer, echoing comments he...

<p>From Presidents Harry Truman to Donald Trump, the United States liberalized trade the most among developed countries. The average U.S. tariff on dutiable goods is 4.5%, with the average tariff on all goods sitting at below 2%. Meanwhile, U.S. goods face higher tariffs and many other barriers to entry abroad. Facebook still can’t operate in China, and U.S. tech giants face a “digital services” tax in France.</p>

There are a lot of good things to say, and few bad things to say, about the November employment numbers that were published Friday morning. Employers added 266,000 jobs, a blockbuster number even after accounting for the one-time boost of about 41,000 striking General Motors workers who returned to the job. Revisions to previous months’ job counts were positive. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, matching its lowest level since 1969. Other numbers were less evocative of a boom time. The share of the adult population in the labor force ticked down, and average hourly earnings continued growing at...

Jobless claims unexpectedly plunged in the week ended November 23, indicating that the American labor market remains strong. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 15,000 to 213,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Economists had been looking for a smaller decline. The prior week’s claims were revised up by 1,000 to 228,000.

Food tester was first rushed to hospital, and doctors believe there was exposure to time-delayed poison  An inside source says President Trump’s food taster became ill after ingesting an unnamed substance, which is why the president made a surprise hospital visit on Saturday.In an official statement, the White House said President Trump visited the Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, for  a “quick exam and labs.”The hospital visit was not listed on the president’s public schedule, according to media outlets which indicated that the visit was not a routine physical exam.Additionally, the inside source said his food taster was rushed to the facility...

The most surprising thing about the latest unemployment report isn’t that the rate dropped to the lowest level since December 1969. It’s that unemployment wasn’t supposed to get anywhere near that low under President Trump. At least, not if you believed mainstream Keynesian economists. The economy created 136,000 jobs in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of businesses. The separate household survey, which is used to track unemployment, showed that the number of unemployed dropped by 275,000. Not only did the job market pull 275,000 off the unemployment line last month, it pulled more than 100,000 who...